7. “Far From Heaven”
A visually sumptuous banquet, Todd Haynes‘ ode to the Sirkian melodrama of the ’50s is also an entirely modern meditation on the clash between surface and true identity (explored, of course, via sexuality and race). Julianne Moore stars as a traditional housewife who discovers her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay while she contemplates a verboten romance of her own — with her family’s black gardener (Dennis Haysbert). If the perfect cast (which also includes future Oscar nominees Viola Davis and Patricia Clarkson) and Edward Lachman‘s shimmering cinematography aren’t enough to get your vintage knickers in a twist — the latter’s radiant use of Fassbinder-like color and shadow should have taken the Oscar — “Far From Heaven” also boasts an evocative score from Elmer Bernstein. “Mad Men” might have made mid-century nostalgia popular in the latter aughts, but Haynes’ film did it first.
6. “Morvern Callar”
On the surface, there’s not much plot to Lynne Ramsay’s tone poem, which finds the title character, the luminous Samantha Morton, co-opting her dead boyfriend’s manuscript as her own. Awash in a sea of emotions, Morton’s performance exposes what the screenplay refuses to imagine in dialogue, allowing for the film, a travelogue of her literary-fueled escapades into big city nightlife, to become an autopsy of a lonely soul. Carried by an eclectic underground soundtrack (wonderfully dreamy and droning choices by Broadcast, Aphex Twin, and more), “Morvern Callar” takes us to more places within the eyes of Morton than the roving camera of a Michael Bay film ever could.
5. “Y Tu Mamá También”
“Y Tu Mama Tambien” could have been unbearable. By following two snotty, privileged, oversexed teenagers on a road trip with an older woman, it risks being something like an episode of “Gossip Girl.” But director Alfonso Cuarón keeps it closer to a modern day “Jules et Jim,” shooting the whole movie in a vibrant, handheld manner, and making it feel like the best summer holiday you never had. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna have never matched their performances here (although the MVP is Maribel Verdu as Luisa, whose melancholy take on the older woman grounds the film perfectly), and Cuaron’s direction is note-perfect. Plus, it’s that absolute rarity, a film that’s free to be honest and explicit about sex, while still remaining genuinely sexy — no L-shaped bedsheets or roaring fireplaces needed here.
4. “Solaris”
Did you remember her differently? This is the question astronaut and psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) must address as he stands at the precipice of his own sanity, facing the specter of his lost love (a gorgeously photographed Natascha McElhone), and wondering if the mass he orbits is bringing his memories to life, only for Kelvin to learn they are incomplete. Steven Soderbergh’s brisk remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s haunting Stanislav Lem adaptation eschews hard science in favor of a hot-blooded story of the evidence left behind by our own romantic histories. The film is sparse, tense and curt, miles away from the lugubrious original, but in its haunting immediacy (much helped by Cliff Martinez‘s ghostly electronic-like score) and chilly ending, one could argue it’s even an improvement.